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It’s probably all in my head because Ev and Deuce are right and I’m now thinking every woman is sexualizing everything because of how hard up I am for another person in my life. Either way, she smiles, and everything seems tofeel normal again, leaving me to believe maybe itisall in my head.
By the time I’m at the nurses’ station, I’ve thoroughly convinced myself Dolly was not flirting with me, nor has she ever. It’s all me. I need to date. I need to fuck. I need to be a man outside of my home and land, and meet needs I’ve long been ignoring.
“Hi there,” I greet the nurse with long dark hair. “My neighbor is here, she needs sutures. She’s got a gash in her foot and one in her hand, about three inches long. Could have debris in them still. I haven’t let her walk on the foot or use the hand but she definitely needs sutures.”
The nurse eyes me as she slides a clipboard full of papers to me. “Have her fill this out. And there’s a co-pay.”
I nod. “Okay.”
She smiles. “Pay when you come back. It’ll be one hundred dollars.”
I return to Dolly, who is using her good hand to text message. “Juniper and Ivy are two hours away,” she says as I sit next to her in the tiny chair made of old wood and vinyl upholstery.
“It’s all right,” I tell her, “I’ll drive you back.” I click the pen open, realizing her right hand is the injured one. “I gotta get this filled out for you, then turn it in and you’ll get seen.”
She rifles around in her purse, handing me her debit card. “For the co-pay, Hud. I heard her mention it.”
Hud.
Damn, I like the shortened version of my name on her lips.
I shrug. “All right, when’s your birthday, Dolly?
I learn a lot I didn’t know about Dahlia as Ifill out her paperwork, enjoying the little crumbs of detail she offers up with each answer.
My birthday is March 8th. When I was born, you were celebrating your 18th birthday.That made me feel old as fuck.
You know my address. You know, the day you and Tessa showed up next door, I hadn’t realized the house was for sale. I guess I thought it’d sit empty forever. Though now I’m sure glad it didn’t.
Yes, I’ve had the chickenpox vaccine. I had them once, though, after that. It was mild. I had one near my belly button and I couldn’t leave it alone.
After ten minutes, I know about the time she got six stitches above her eye from slipping on stones near the creek as a little girl, everything she’s allergic to and that she doesn't like doctors. She presses the card into my hand and I carry her papers and payment up, passing them to the nurse.
She takes the clipboard easily, swiping the card next. “Debit or credit?”
I turn and look at Dolly, whose gaze is already all over me. My skin grows hot. “Debit, you said?”
She nods.
“What’s your PIN?” I ask, not wanting her to get up despite the fact we’re just ten paces apart. I’m concerned about glass still being in her foot. The gash was so big.
That must’ve been a terrifying spider.
“Zero,” she mouths, “eight,” she adds, rubbing her lips together in the middle, making my brain short-circuit in ways I completely fucking ignore. “Eight, five.”
I nod, and face the nurse. She swipes the card for me and right as that PIN code settles into my brain, the screen asksme for the numbers. My thumb presses the zero then the eight, the eight again and then the five. I hit enter, earning me a green check mark on the payment screen.
The nurse hands me a receipt, and tells me that Dolly will go back next in just a few minutes. I return to her, passing her back the debit card. “Your PIN is my birthday,” I muse aloud.
She zips the top of her purse. “I know.”
Her blue eyes idle on mine, her small hand drifting over the armrest, fingers tangling with mine just as a man calls, “DAHLIA ELLINGTON.”
Startling to my feet, I grab a vacant wheelchair from nearby. The male nurse stuffs her folder under his arm, coming to help me get her into the chair.
Her PIN code is my birthday… She said she knew. She must have meant she knew that was my birthday, but not that she knew it was my birthday when she made it her code. I almost laugh at myself when I think of it that way.Dolly did not make her bank card PIN the birthday of the old guy next door.
“You’ll have to wait here,” the male nurse says as he pushes a wheelchair-confined Dahlia into the private hall leading to the waiting rooms.
